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That being said, it would be a lot more definitive if the original poster had asked which hybrid or named cultivars self-seed truly.

A lot of them do, and its probably more than less. But, if you limit yourself to saving seeds only of open-pollinated true-to-type plants you lose out on a lot of possible variety. I remember years back someone at the Hosta Forum having a hairy major freak-out on me when I said I was growing hostas from seeds I saved from the plants in my own garden. This person went on and on about how they weren't likely to breed true, I couldn't give the seedlings the parent names, yadda yadda yadda.

Snore. Yawn. Snore. I don't give a carp what the plants are named and if they all make babies that look different then all the merrier because when you do hostas then she who has the most different plants wins the game every time. (snark) Some people get really hung up on names and perfect replication, my point is that you lose a lot of possibilities if you limit yourself to a very narrow set of seeds.

Everyone has their own set of standards--for some having the perfect this or that is only what they will settle for. I'm more like the person who eagerly awaits the mixed set of kittens from the show cat that escaped and had an encounter with the champion mouser from the barn...oh, the possibilities.

The true-to-type seed database is an interesting project and it will be useful to folks who need to faithfully replicate plants by seed. I can see an importance there for retail or plant sales, or home and community beautification projects where conformity, especially in HOAs, are more than desired, they're required.

Here is a link that might be useful: Link

Hi trudi...actually i do both, i like to know what i expect when i plant a seed. like i am currently starting plumeria, cyclamen, and amaryllis in the house...i know most probably these will not come true to seed.

however, i planted some coneflower...green envy and such in ws containers (got them in a trade) if they were open pollinated guess they may not come true to seed...but my question is will they all be just a plain jane coneflower or will they cross with whatever they was pollinated with for some really cool beautiful coneflower?

the other thing to consider, especially when your talking hosta for example: if you plant say a twister or chartruese wiggles (sp) your probably going to get that look, and so if that is what your looking for your right on the money. although i went wild ws'ing hosta seeds last year, which by the way ws wonderfully huh, and i'm like you did not care so much what i got as i'm the weird one that just likes growing seeds.

but i am also the one that likes to know what to expect, so i can see the benefit of what your saying but at the same time i want a green envy coneflower daggon it lol and i want to grow it and not buy it *sigh*

It can take a few years for the hosta to mature and you see the final outcome. I have a beautiful powdery-green hosta that didn't show its puckering until it was at least three years old. If I had culled it early on I would have lost out on its magnificence.

Some of the older hybrids may be stable by now, and certainly there are some newer ones which are stable but nobody will tell you because the plant is held under patent. If you want to see what I mean then save and sow seeds of Purple Majesty Millet and see what you get. The seeds are outrageoulsy expensive, sometimes selling still for a dollar each, yet it reseeds true to type. PPP is a profit maker.

Coneflowers do cross with other coneflowers and you'll see variation in any batch of seeds. Hollyhocks and Columbines are both notoriously promiscuous but I've loved every one that has sprouted. Downstairs, growing under lights because it couldn't be helped, I have a few lots of designer daylily crosses. It will take a few years before they begin to bloom but ooh, just total ooh. By then I'll have likely lost their names and their tags and I expect the thrill to be there when they have their first bloom. I don't know what they'll be like, I do expect them to be daylilies, so there will be no disappointment with that, it will be eye candy to see and that's all I expect.

If you want a guarantee of similarity then stick with dyed-in-the-wool wildflowers or any of the favorites from the dollar store. Once you start taking seed from super-hybridized varieties you're going to see some changes come in a bit in the F2s, the F3s and 4s even more as the parental and grand-parental traits start to come to the forefront. Years back I grew out some F2s of white marigolds and the following generations eventually settled into a toffee-cream tone, something I liked a lot. White marigolds are so far removed from their original orange tones I could make a winning bet that they would not be stable, Ma Natures decides the filtration. People can cross and cross and cross to their hearts content to get a hybrid with assumed/described/fashionable appearance, but take human interference away and the genes resettle into their own stability. The capacity for a dominant trait to survive to be passed on from one generation to the next is what determines the appearance. Ma Nature is boss.

A few feet from the window here is a large shade tree and underneath it are the hosta seedlings I grew in 2011. I lost count transplanting but there are 80 or 90 large and similar hostas, there are half as many smaller and differently shaped hostas. I had taken the seeds from all my oooh and ahhh hostas, put them together in a bowl, stirred and sowed them together. At transplant I put out clumps of similar types. It will be interesting, but how nice to to have a 100+ hostas for no money.

What I've wanted to know about this subject. How do seed companies give you the exact plant. Do they hand pollinate each type of flower themselves. Do they use machines. I am very curious about this.

really makes me wonder to...there are certain seeds we know you just have to divide to get the correct plant...example hosta. but honestly probably a good portion of the seed we are trading are not true to seed...unless everyone hand pollinates and the thing i have looked at hand pollinating that seems easy is pumpkin, squash, gourd...that type of thing. but i am interested in this as well lady. the ones i want to know is true to seed would at least be like my edibles. I do like surprises and as trudi and i both mentioned it is nice sometimes to just see what ya get. but at the same time i dont wont to exchange roma tomatoes that are not true to seed. just a very interesting subject including hand pollinating.

Here is a link that might be useful: something of interest

It can be interesting to experiment and see what you get from growing open-pollinated seed. BUT if I want a certain plant I'll either buy commercial seed or if I know I can't live without it, I'll buy the actual plant.

A few plants that I've bought in recent years: Geranium Rozanne, Nepeta Walker's Low, Echinacea Hot Papaya, Echinacea Hot Summer... a few others too.

I didn't want imposters, I wanted to be sure to get the Real McCoy. Some plants are just superior, they bring rave reviews and awards (like Perennial of the Year) for a reason. I don't mind buying them, and haven't regretted any of the purchases.

Karen

That is why I am using discretion when trading. Most people are trading from their garden's. It's fun. How can you guarantee their getting what they want?

Seed trading is easy, just in your posts describe your seeds as OP--open pollinated, which means that only Ma Nature was involved with the pollination of the flower.

I think the very vast majority of trades are OPs unless the poster is saying that they are not, such as the daylily crosses I'm currently growing out--the hybridizer has supplied the names of the parent plants.

ymaddox, stick with heirlooms or OPs which are self-pollinated and you'll get what you want though sometimes Ma Nature can still get involved. Also, with things like hardshell squash, there can be cross-pollination unless the grower has isolated the plants. You may want to read a copy of Seed to Bloom (I forget the author but it's a common book.)

I will probably look more into flowers I can hand pollinate just for the sake of learning. I don't mind a.cross but if I can hand pollinate some seed pods of each variety then I could have both the op but the original parent as well. One day I would like to have my own small greenhouse....just to supplement income, have flowers both houseplants, annual, and perennials, veggie plants, and organically grown produce. I love being a nurse and would never quit, but I could supplement income and as well build a local business so that when I retire I have something fun that I love to do set up and going.

I enjoy almost every aspect of growing plants from seed, from observing the natural genetic variation that is produced in Nature, and possibly stumbling across that unique seedling, to breeding and collecting my own seed strains that will hopefully seed true to the parent.

This fall I collected seeds from Ipomoea 'Split Personality' and Digitalis Camelot lavender and expect them to seed true because they were the only variety of each blooming at the time, so there was nothing else to cross-pollinate with. I'm also growing some cultivars of seed from commercial sources and see how uniform and reliable they are. So far, they've mostly been pretty good.

I tend to grow more seedlings and enjoy a wilder more natural look in the back yard gardens, and have more cultivars with a little more formality and consistency in the front gardens.

Seed collecting is fascinating, addictive and, for me anyway, as much fun as winter sowing. When my WS garden blooms with bright colors, it thrills me to pieces but I enjoy collecting seeds from dried flowers and seedpods every bit as much.

This year I kept notes of what was blooming during each week/each month and added what plants had seedpods/heads for the same period. At some point I'll organize the information to make it more user-friendly. Looking back at my notes was fun, especially when someone posted asking what flowers bloom in May. It was cool having the information right at my fingertips. Granted, it's only relevant to my zone/region but I'm glad I kept track. Beats doing housework!

Since I have a couple of named hostas that produce buckets of seeds every year, I harvested & traded seeds, always identifying the parent but including information about them not coming true from seed. Most who wanted the seeds understood but still wanted to grow them. I grew hosta from seed harvested from my named cultivars, along with daylilies, knowing they would be different but excited about what they might look like. I want lots of plants in my garden beds, healthy ones that can thrive in good as well as harsh seasons. They don't need to be named cultivars, altho' I love my El Nino, Dream Weaver, Captain Kirk and other 'designer' hostas purchased long before I discovered winter sowing. Same with Ida's Magic, Breakfast at Tiffany's, Ann Warner, and Smokey Mountain Autumn daylilies. They're all beautiful and a sight for sore, winter-weary eyes when they bloom. I enjoyed harvesting the seeds they produced every bit as much as their daily flowers.

it will be very fun to try to collect open pollinated as well as bag some of those same varieties that are heirloom to maintain the seed. although at this point unless i guess you buy it most plants traded on gw are going to be op and probably not true to seed, although i have not really researched how much of a difference will occur. for example will cross pollinated coneflowers revert back to the mother plant and of course would not know what that is if traded a op flower.

here is my dilemma...what i dont understand. lets take coneflower i read double decker comes true to seed. what exactly does that mean. does it mean it is a heirloom, but what if i has a different variety next to it and let them cross pollinate. of course the ones that fell to the ground that the bee's pollinated double decker with double decker will be true. but what is say a bee pollinated a green envy with a double decker. will i still get that double decker or will i get a cross of the two? i am starting to confuse myself with all the possibilities.

i know if i purposefully hand pollinate a double decker with a double decker and bag i will get pure seed. what i plan to do with particular garden seeds i love. i will just hand pollinate some of them to save seed and eat the rest. just when i think i got it all straight in my mind i think up another possiblity...need a on/off switch for the brain lol.

I think that Echinacea cross-pollinates quite readily and if you are growing several different cultivars and species that you are likely to get mixed seedlings. I collected seed from Echinacea 'White Swan' and got a mix of white and pink seedlings - obviously it had cross-pollinated with some of the pink E. purpureas.

The seedlings from the 'Big Sky' series, which are hybrids of E. purpurea and E. paradoxa, often came out really ugly for me. They looked like tall gangly washed out E. pupureas that flopped over. I had one seedling that was very nice, looked like it had crossed with E. tenneseensis 'Rocky Top hybrids', but then the d*mn vole ate the roots this past winter and it was wiped out! Erggggg...

Double Decker is not an heirloom but it is stable, meaning that any variation among offspring is so slight as to be unnoticeable.

Hey there ymaddox! I'm actually the one that created/posted that. Glad you found it interesting- and hopefully helpful ;-)

I'm still collecting info for the database, though I haven't been posting about it all that much. Quite frankly some of the comments it has elicited has discouraged me a bit from doing more. Some people will chew one out for daring to grow a patented plant or hybrid from seed and for hoping it might look something like the original parent plant. Sometimes the negativity and objections can get overwhelming. Lately I have been looking up a lot online and in books and mags for info and am adding that whenever I find it. I did a post a thread on this forum (WS) awhile back where folks could post their own findings. Didn't get to many replies...maybe I will have to dig it up again sometime. Anyone that has info can post it there or even email me privately with that info- I would love to hear it! I still hope to continue on with the project...

If you don't care what the seedlings end up looking like or what parent plant they sprung from was named that is fine. If you only care to grow species, heirlooms, op varieties, etc there isn't anything wrong with that either. If you would rather buy genetically pure plants from a reliable nursery or source that is entirely your prerogative (although there are cases where even tissue cultured plants will end up different looking. Take a look at how Geranium 'Double Jewel' came to be: here-Ghraham Rice's Blog So even those methods are not always accurate!) .

Some get a kick out of growing hybrids/named cultivars. I happen to think that is okay too.
Some folks to like taking notes (like me, I love taking notes, especially anything garden or plant related! Seriously, my computer desk is covered in sticky notes with plant names scrawled all over them, lol) on those results and some don't. No problem either way. I had hoped there might be a few on the forums like me who also liked jotting down notes on plants from seed and sharing their findings on this subject with others.

A lot of people have been taking this far more seriously than they should and seem to misunderstand the point of it. I created this list both for fun AND to try and have a good resource for those who like to grow hybrids/named cultivars from seed but would like to have some starting idea if there is any possibility the seedlings will look the same or even remotely similar to the parent cultivar or if it absolutely will not.

Hasn't everyone at some point looked at a spot in their garden and said to themselves "a gold leafed plant would be nice there"/ "I need something two feet tall here and no more" or some such? Now combine that with the fact that not everybody has the $ or willingness to buy a 'pure/true' plant from the nursery or can't find their particular want where they live and so would like to try growing it from seed. No harm in that either.

My whole point here is that it was meant for the fun and experimentation and for JOY OF LEARNING! It thrills me to no end growing things from seed and seeing what comes of it, sharing my findings when others are looking for that info, and learning from them in the process too!

Anyhoo, you are probably sick of reading all this rambling, so I will stop, LOL. If anyone wants to contribute to the database just shoot me an email or dig up the post here about it and I will be VERY happy to add it! Thanks.
CMK